I Love My Church!**

 

Wow! I’m thanking God for a wonderful “I Love My Church” Sunday. God involved so many people in this experience. I want to say thank you to everyone who said “Yes!,” when God asked them to engage in this week’s unifying, connecting, fun, worshiping, baptizing Gospel event. I would like to follow one particular God story that changed the lives of one family and blessed many others. I am sure there are many stories like this one, but this is the one God allowed me to see firsthand. I watched and listened as the staff talked about and planned the “I Love My Church!” Sunday. First, there needed to be an outreach to invite those people that either didn’t know Jesus or were not engaged in a church. Jonathan had asked us all to be praying for folks who need Jesus during our October Missions Month. A decision was made to make invitation bags available to take to these people for whom we were praying. The bag was simple: a card and a couple of cookies that said, “You belong here.” Bags, cookies, cards, and crinkle stuffing paper were ordered. A crew of several ABC volunteers came to stuff bags, stage them and pray over them before they were to be picked up. People picked up the bags the Sunday before to deliver them to invite friends, neighbors, family and coworkers. One ABC 2nd grader who herself had been baptized just a few weeks ago wanted 15 bags to take to her friends. Her mother said, “maybe a few,” but this little girl was insistent that she wanted her friends to know Jesus. I’m not sure how many she ended up giving away, but one of the bags she delivered ended up in the hands of a classmate. This classmate showed up to ABC for “I Love My Church!” Sunday. I happened to be in the lobby when this 2nd grader and his mother arrived. I was able to take the two of them to meet Rachel so he could join the Children’s Worship, Bible study, and fun. Mom then went to the worship center. The Holy Spirit moved Mom’s heart with the worship music, compelling Gospel message, and the sweet fellowship of 1000 worshipers. At the invitation to be baptized this woman came to the front of the room full of strangers and said, “Yes!” to Jesus. When she went to the baptistry changing room she was met by Adrian, who talked with her and learned that it was her first time to ABC and that her son was in the Children’s wing. Bill, Jo and the baptism team helped her get ready to be baptized. Adrian went to get this woman’s son, so he could watch his mother’s testimony that she belongs to Jesus through the waters of baptism. He watched his mother, then came to see her afterwards and gave her a big hug. He too wants to be baptized. Conversations about that are ongoing. I love how many people were involved in this continuing God story! There were planners, preparers, goers, givers, teachers, servers, cooks, cleaners, children’s workers, table setters, runners, towel washers… all involved in God’s plan to impact the lives of this family and others with the Gospel. 

Pastor Jonathan has been preaching on the Great Commission for the month of October. Matthew 28:18-20 says, “... Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18–20 ESV) There was a lot involved in the GO-ing (planning, ordering, stuffing, baking, staging, delivering…). But this little girl decided to GO to her friends with bags to invite them to ABC. This young man and his mother came because they were invited. His mother heard the Word of God, the Truth of the Gospel, and was BAPTIZED (and her son may be baptized too). Next in the MAKING DISCIPLES plan that Jesus gave us is the teaching part. This 2nd grader has already connected with the Children’s Ministry director and teachers who are TEACHING him and other kids what life is like when you belong to Jesus. Mom is being invited to an Adult Bible Fellow-ship Group to learn alongside other believers all the blessings, joys, and opportunities of belonging to Jesus. Lord, give us the boldness to GO and MAKE DISCIPLES like this 2nd grader! 

Hang in there people! God is glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all! 

And The Flames Went Higher!*

 

When I was a teenager, my family owned some property on the lake, with plans to one day build a house on it. It was across the street and down a house or two from the house I grew up in, but we liked it because, “it was on the lake.” My father was trying to determine the best plan to dispose of a large amount of driftwood debris that had floated into our cove and was left stranded there as the water lowered. The idea was to just do a controlled burn. The wood pile was bordered by water on one side, was pretty far from the grass,  and with some shovels and hoes, he reasoned that we should be able to handle any sparks that got upwind on the grass. East Tennessee winters are usually very moist, but for some reason not that year.  Things were very dry on that sunny February day. We ignited the fire and things were going swimmingly until the wind changed and whipped the small fire into a very large fire, a fire larger than any of us had ever experienced.  The embers were jumping several feet into the air and then falling onto the dry grass. Initially we were doing pretty well putting out the small fires with the shovel, but then there were just too many. As the fire began to get out of control, I jumped on my motorcycle and rode quickly across and up the street to my house, while Dad continued fighting the fire. I called the volunteer fire department (with a rotary dial phone that seemed to take forever).  The dispatcher informed me that there were several out of control fires in the county that day, and they would try to get there when they could. I rode back to find that much of the field was now burning and my father was working feverishly to prevent the flames from getting to a fence row which would have involved another large adjacent field and no telling how much of the neighborhood. In the meantime, the flames were headed toward the street and whirlwinds of fire were leaping several feet at a time. Fortunately the wind was blowing away from the adjacent neighbor’s house. But unfortunately, the wind was blowing toward the historic “Harvey Farmhouse” directly across the street. “Rivermont” as it was also called, was built before 1900 and we knew it would ignite like a tender box. We were all praying a lot as we frantically tried to keep the conflagration in check. My mother, sister and neighbors had shown up trying to corral the flames.  All I could do was try to put out a few small flames as the fire devil jumped the road and lurched toward the old wooden house. My sister had brought a fire extinguisher, but wasn’t sure how to operate it. A neighbor grabbed it and quickly put out the largest flames before they reached the crispy, dry, unraked leaves around the house.  Mercifully, after a couple of hours, the wind and the flames died down enough and the old house was spared. God had answered and the fire was contained to only our property.  Needless to say, we never tried a controlled burn again.  We also, for some reason, never built on that property. 

When the prophet Isaiah was telling God’s people to remember Who they belonged to, he also warned them with fiery imagery about what would happen to those who were against God.  Isaiah 66:14-16 says, “When you see this (God’s restoration, protection, comfort, and blessing on His people), your heart will rejoice and you will flourish like grass; the hand of the LORD will be made known to his servants, but his fury will be shown to his foes. See, the LORD is coming with fire, and his chariots are like a whirlwind; he will bring down his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. For with fire and with his sword the LORD will execute judgment upon all men, and many will be those slain by the LORD.”  I definitely don’t want to be on the wrong side of God’s angry, fiery rebuke.  My experience that day on our lake property makes this picture very vivid to me. This is a good reminder to be sure we know we belong to God, because there is no neutral ground.  Jesus tells us, ““He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters.”(Luke 11:23) Believe and belong to Him and flourish like grass! 

Hang in there people! God is glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all!

When You Can See It Coming, But Can't Stop It?*

Photo credit: spreadricenothate

When my kids were in preschool and early elementary, we moved to Nashville to serve an urban church. The parsonage was situated on a large hill between the Baptist church at the bottom, where I pastored, and the Methodist church at the top. In the Summers we loved that hill for a homemade slip and slide, we loathed it when kicking the soccer ball, which usually ended up in or near the creek at the bottom of the hill. My son, while learning to ride a bike, took an unfortunate wobble then an uncontrolled turn down the hill. Frozen in fear, he forgot how to use the coaster brakes. Fortunately, he was not injured badly.  One of my toddler daughters was in the back yard when I came home from work. She smiled and turned to run to me. I was standing on the asphalt driveway below her and I could see what was coming. She was laughing and running toward me, which in one sense made my day, however,  I knew her little legs would not be able to keep up with her quickly growing head and body as she accelerated down the hill. I started saying, “stop!, stop!” and running toward her, but she was just too excited to see her Daddy.  She was doing well keeping up with gravity until just before the asphalt and then I saw it happening in slow motion, but I still couldn’t get to her in time. She fell face first on the driveway and her little head bounced when she hit. I finally got to her an instant later (which seemed like an eternity) I scooped her up and waited for tears. Surprisingly there were just a few, but she did have a scrape and pumpknot (hematoma) on her forehead.  

Don’t you hate it when you see the life choices of someone you care about that will lead to a big crash? You do all you can to warn them: “Stop! Stop!” but they just don’t yet understand all the forces at work in this world. When Paul was encouraging the Corinthian church, he could see that they were highlighting one Spiritual Gift over all the others. Even something as good as a Spiritual Gift could be used as something bad and divisive for the church.  Speaking in tongues became the gift that if you didn’t have it, you were not one of the cool kids at church.  Those who had it considered it so important they forgot that when we belong to Jesus, love is the most important thing.  Paul tells them, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.”(1 Corinthians 13:1)  Paul knows what is coming, that the evil forces at work in this world are going to take even this (and other) spiritual gift(s) and use it against the church. Those with the coveted gift will be filled with pride and those without it will feel belittled and devalued. Both, in their immaturity, will forget that love is greater than any gift. They will forget how it is like them to act toward those around them.  Paul tells them, “Brothers, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults.” (1 Corinthians 14:20) Paul loved the Corinthian church, but they were forgetting Who they belonged to. When we see an unavoidable social, emotional, Spiritual train wreck coming in someone’s life, like when an adult child chooses the wrong friend group, or significant other, or career choice, sometimes all we can do is try to tell them to stop. But then we gotta be ready to scoop them up and love them “no matter what” as they heal even if they don’t yet understand why they should stop.   

Hang in there people! God is glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all!